


Love's Strange (So Real in the Dark)

by darlingargents



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Amnesia, Getting Together, M/M, Post-Canon, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:02:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21841861
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: An ordinary day, the image of a turtle, and a man that Bill can’t stop noticing. Over and over.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon
Comments: 16
Kudos: 66
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	Love's Strange (So Real in the Dark)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [younglegends](https://archiveofourown.org/users/younglegends/gifts).



> Thank you to Z for the beta and encouragements!
> 
> Title and epigraph from Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds, for the 80s vibes and thematic relevance. Warning for a scene of heavy drinking.

_Will you stand above me?  
_ _Look my way, never love me  
_ _Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling  
_ _Down, down, down  
_ _Will you recognize me?  
_ _Call my name or walk on by  
_ _Rain keeps falling, rain keeps falling  
_ _Down..._

❖❖❖

Bill spends almost six months without writing, after… after. He doesn’t know what. Whatever happened — when he went back to Maine, when Audra fell into a coma and out again. He couldn’t go back to England, and she didn’t understand why he wanted to stay. The divorce had been as quiet as they could make it, and she’d sent boxes of his things back over the Atlantic over the course of those six months.

It was the longest he’d ever gone without writing since the early days of college. He’s not an everyday writer, not really — between novels, he’ll go days just reading and going on walks to percolate ideas — but he usually has something going, and doesn’t stop for more than a week or two. Maybe a month, if he really wants to outline. But this time he goes six months, and he has no idea why. Every time he sits in front of his typewriter, his fingers refuse to move. All he can think is, _I haven’t had the idea yet_ , and he has no idea what that means. What idea? What is he waiting for?

He’s living in a small town in Massachusetts, a short drive from a city, and he’s lonely. It could be attributed to living alone for the first time in years, or being in a small town where he doesn’t know any of the locals, but a part of him wonders if he’s waiting for something. Or someone.

He’s been having the strangest dreams, too, and he never remembers them when he wakes up. There’s just the sense of dread, and the niggling thought that he’s forgetting something important.

All in all, things are not going well.

❖❖❖

He has a few errands to run in Boston, so he drives there and books a hotel room for two nights on almost exactly the six-month anniversary of his divorce. He’s carrying around a notebook now, hoping for inspiration to strike, and as he waits for the dentist at half past eight in the morning, he doodles on the corner of the page, a series of interlocking circles. It almost looks like a turtle’s shell, he notices, when he gets called into the dentist’s office. It’s a mostly painless twenty minutes, he has no new cavities and doesn’t need a root canal, and he’s out on the street before nine.

There’s a steady stream of foot commuters around, and a bus goes rocking by as he walks down to where his car is parked. As he reaches to unlock it, someone stumbles into him, hard, and the keys go flying into the gutter, nearly falling down the storm drain.

“Sorry,” says an unfamiliar voice somewhere behind him, and he looks up to see a man standing there, a few inches shorter and strangely, uncomfortably familiar. He’s wearing a bright red scarf, looped around his neck and long enough to brush his belt.

“Do I know you?” Bill asks, and the man shrugs.

“Don’t lose your keys,” he says, and turns away. Bill watches him walk down the street for a moment too long, his eyes fixated on the tail of the scarf as it flutters in the wind, and then leans down to scoop up his keys.

The rest of the day goes as expected. Boring and predictable. Bill mails a package to Audra’s sister’s family in Colorado — the kids still think of him as uncle Bill, and he figured there’s no reason not to get them birthday presents — and meets his publisher at their Boston office. His book sales are still solid, but they need a new pitch. Before the Denbrough name begins to go stale, as they put it.

“How soon can you have another novel?” an intern asks bluntly after a few minutes of his publisher beating around the bush, and Bill rubs his temples. He’s getting a headache already.

“I don’t know,” he says, again, and the rest of the meeting doesn’t go any better. It’s mid-afternoon when he’s finally free. He has a dinner reservation and he’ll drive home in the morning. For now, he has nothing to do, so he takes a walk, going nowhere in particular, and ending up in a park. There’s a duck pond with a few benches around it, and he sits and feeds the ducks for twenty minutes or so.

When he stands to leave, there’s a flash of something under the surface of the water, and he leans over, looking closer. It looked almost like a turtle.

The restaurant, when he gets there, is half-full. His table overlooks the water and he picks at the bread basket as he watches boats come in and the sun goes down. The food is very good and he practically inhales his entree. As he stands to leave, he stops, staring at someone sitting with their back to him. All he can see is dark, curly hair shot through with gray, a red scarf, and a black jacket.

His server leans past him to wipe the table, and he takes his cue to leave. He glances back through the windows of the restaurant as he gets in his car, but the angle is wrong. He can’t see the man. It probably was a totally different person, he rationalizes as he drives away. There must be a hundred or more men in Boston wearing a red scarf today.

That doesn’t explain why the man who bumped into him and the man in the restaurant both felt so strangely familiar. Or why he remembers the man from that morning at all.

It doesn’t matter, he tells himself decisively. Back at the hotel, he packs up his suitcase and lays out his clothes for the morning. He doesn’t set an alarm — he’ll wake up early enough and he has nowhere to be. Just a day to drive.

He falls asleep as rain begins to pour down.

❖❖❖

“ _Goooooooood morning, Boston! It’s quarter past seven and I’m your host—_ ”

Bill’s hand lands heavy on the alarm clock, silencing the radio, and he groans. He didn’t actually check — he probably forgot to turn it off yesterday morning. He’s awake now, though, so he sits up and fumbles for the bedside lamp. His hand lands on his pocket calendar, and he stills.

He’d packed that, last night. He remembers. In the outside pocket of his suitcase. He left it out yesterday morning, open to yesterday’s page, with the directions to the dentist’s office, so he wouldn’t have to find it. But he put it away last night.

His fingers find the lamp cord and he pulls it. Clear as day: his pocket calendar, open to yesterday. Directions to the dentist, directions to the publisher’s office. A note to send the package. His restaurant reservation.

His suitcase is on the other side of the room. Open. Unpacked.

Bill can feel his breath coming faster and faster. This makes no sense. He packed the suitcase, he packed the calendar. He didn’t set an alarm. But here he is, woken by the alarm, nothing packed, clothes laid out for the meeting with his publisher on the other bed.

He dials the front desk, his heart pounding. “What’s the date today?” he asks, aware that he probably sounds halfway to hysteria. The receptionist tells him.

Yesterday’s date.

He waits a moment just in case she realizes that she’s wrong, or didn’t change over her calendar, but she just asks if he needs anything else. Bill hangs up without answering.

As he stands and starts to dress, he’s still half-certain that it’s some sort of elaborate hallucination. That he’s going to wake up and realize that it’s a dream. Or that maybe, just maybe, last night he laid all this out and forgot about it. Maybe his clothes are still freshly ironed after a day of wear, somehow. Maybe someone told the receptionist to lie to him. It doesn’t make any sense, but he repeats it over and over, and it starts to feel more and more true.

He’s just about calmed down when he happens to glance over to the desk and sees a package sitting on top of it. The one he mailed yesterday.

He sits down heavily on the bed, his shirt half-buttoned, and tries to breathe, air rattling through his lungs. The innocuous package, wrapped in brown paper, is somehow more terrifying than anything else in the room. He watched it disappear into the back room of a post office, knowing he’d never see it again, like any other package he’s ever mailed, and now it’s here, sitting in front of him.

Suddenly feeling almost frantic, Bill stumbles around the other bed and rips the curtains open. It’s cloudy, blue sky poking through a few gaps, patches of sunlight glaring off the windows of cars below, and the streets are dry, not a puddle in sight. It was pouring rain when Bill fell asleep, he’s certain of that. The total dry is impossible.

But it’s here, right in front of him.

“So,” he says out loud, “yesterday must have been a dream.”

Yes. That’s it. He must have had a strangely realistic dream that felt like a full day. That explains everything. He’s not going crazy, and he hasn’t somehow travelled back in time. He had a dream. That’s all.

❖❖❖

The day seems to go… well, a lot like his dream. He doesn’t doodle in the dentist’s office this time, but the results of his examination are the same. Outside, a bus goes by, someone bumps into him and he drops his keys, though they land safely on the sidewalk this time. He mails the package, and doesn’t try to remember if the post office he’d seen in his dream was accurate. He has a vivid, uncomfortable sense of deja-vu all day, but that’s to be expected.

The meeting with his publisher is the same — tense, awkward. He doesn’t go for a walk this time. He finds somewhere to park and reads his book, a dry but interesting volume on the history of vampire depictions in fiction. He ends up losing track of time and has to speed a little to make his reservation on time.

He orders a different meal this time, and it’s as good as the last one. (The one he dreamed.) He watches the boats coming in, again, but this time he looks away just as the man with the red scarf is being seated. He goes still with his fork halfway to his mouth.

It’s definitely the same man that he saw on the street. Same scarf, same coat, same face — same eyes. His eyes meet Bill’s, and a bolt of pain runs through his head. He drops his fork and it clatters against the plate, making a waitress jump, but the man stays still, maintaining eye contact. It would be almost ridiculous if the sense of deja-vu, so much stronger than anything else, didn’t keep building and building as Bill’s head felt like it was being split open.

The man looks away and sits, and Bill’s headache dissipates. He picks up his fork, and his fingers are shaking. He doesn’t look at the man again, even though he can see the bright red of the scarf out of the corner of his eye. He eats as quickly as he can stomach and leaves a hundred-dollar bill on the table. As he drives back to the hotel, the sky is darkening, and it looks like rain.

Back in the hotel room, he double-checks that the alarm is off, but he doesn’t pack this time. He takes off his blazer, his tie, his button-down, and watches half of a movie before he goes to sleep.

He falls asleep as rain begins to pour down.

❖❖❖

“ _Goooooooood morning, Boston! It’s quarter past seven and I’m your host—_ ”

He slams down his hand on the alarm, his eyes wide open. His heart begins to pound so hard that he can hear it roaring in his ears. He moves his hand down and his fingers brush the pocket calendar.

He doesn’t bother with the light; he stumbles out of bed, kicking the blankets away as they wrap around his legs. When he’s free of the sheets, he moves towards the window and rips the curtains open more violently than strictly necessary. The street below, full of cars and pedestrians, is bone-dry.

Bill can feel himself begin to hyperventilate, and he turns around and sits down heavily on the floor, his back to the wall. His lungs feel like they can’t get enough air. _What the fuck is happening_ , he thinks hysterically, _what is happening to me_ , and he runs his hands down his face, closing his eyes. He pinches himself and it hurts. Not a dream.

❖❖❖

It takes Bill a long time to stand up. The phone rings, twice, when he’s supposed to be at the dentist, and he lets it ring.

Eventually, he makes his way back to the bed and lies down on top of the sheets. He realizes, as he does so, how cold he is — he’s still in his boxers. He hadn’t even noticed. He grabs a more casual shirt and pair of pants from his suitcase and dresses slowly. His heartbeat has calmed down and he can breathe again, but he doesn’t think he’s ready to leave yet.

None of this makes sense. It sounds like the concept for a bad science fiction movie — the same day repeating over and over. Is it going to go forever? He has no idea.

The day passes slowly. He turns on the TV eventually, and drifts in and out of paying attention. He orders room service in the mid-afternoon, and as dusk starts to fall, he puts on his shoes and jacket and goes for a walk. The cold air is almost rejuvenating, and he’s feeling a little more sane when he gets back to the hotel. It’s full dark outside, and he sits at the desk in his room with his notebook and writes out what he knows.

_The day is repeating._

_I’m not dreaming._

_Changes don’t stay._

It’s not much, but it’s a start. He hesitates, and adds another item.

_I’m supposed to get out of this._

He’s not sure why he writes it, but it feels true when he looks down at it. It’s on him to escape. Today is a wash; tomorrow, he’ll figure out what he needs to do.

❖❖❖

“ _Goooooooood morning, Boston! It’s quarter past seven and I’m your host—_ ”

He turns off the alarm and gets up.

His list has, of course, disappeared, but Bill remembers it, and he writes it down again, word for word, as he walks out of the dentist’s office. His focus on writing is the reason that, today, as the bus goes by, it’s him who bumps into the man. His notebook and pen go flying — not his keys, since they’re still in his pocket.

“Sorry,” he says, and reaches down to pick up his notebook off the sidewalk, but it’s already gone.

“No problem,” the man says, and hands him back the notebook with the pen on top. It’s still open to the page Bill was writing on, and he feels himself going red. It probably looks like he’s going off the deep end, but the man clearly didn’t read it, since he’s still standing there and not running off in the other direction as fast as he can.

He’s… still standing there. Bill closes the notebook, slowly, and looks at the man, who is staring at him with an expression that Bill can’t make sense of. Fear, confusion, and recognition, or something of the sort.

“Do I know you?” Bill asks again, like he did the first day. The answer, he’s sure, is yes, and he has no idea how he knows that.

“Don’t lose your notebook,” he says, and turns away.

It makes no sense, since Bill already picked up his notebook, but it’s the same thing the man said the other two days, and it seems right, somehow, like he was reciting his line in a play. A twinge of unease runs through Bill as he watches the man walk away. The tail end of his scarf follows him, twisting in the air like a ribbon.

 _Him_ , he thinks, and his hand closes tighter on the notebook, the edges of the paper digging into his palm. _It’s him_. His head begins to ache, in his temples and down the back towards his neck.

He fumbles for his keys, and once he’s in his car, he unfolds his hand from the notebook and opens it to the page with the pen tucked in. With shaking hands — _when did my hands start shaking?_ — he writes two words.

_It’s him._

He doesn’t know what it means. But it’s important.

❖❖❖

The rest of the day goes by as usual — mailing the package, going to the publisher’s office, walk in the park, reading his book in his car. When he finally gets to the restaurant, ten minutes before his reservation, he’s starting to get nervous. His stomach is churning with anxiety, like he’s in college and working up the courage to ask out a pretty girl. He doesn’t even eat the bread this time, once he’s seated. He orders quickly — another different entree, because why not — and his eyes are glued to the door. The RESERVED sign on the man’s table seems to be taunting him.

Bill’s reservation was at six-thirty. At seven on the dot, the man walks through the door, unlooping his scarf and draping it over his arm in a single smooth motion, and gives his name. Bill is too far away to hear it, but for a moment he finds himself longing to be closer — to hear the man’s name. He feels like the moment he hears it, everything will snap into place.

The man looks at his watch as the waitress takes a menu and gestures towards his table, and as Bill is about to look away, the man looks up and makes eye contact with him.

Bill’s cheeks start to burn, but he finds himself holding the man’s gaze. His dark eyes are prematurely lined, but Bill feels like he can see the shape of a younger man — a boy — in front of him. Bill sees his eyes and he sees green, sees the forest, sees—

He rips his eyes away and looks down at his dinner, still barely touched. His face feels like it’s burning, but he finds himself wondering if his humiliation is really warranted. The man was looking at him, too.

He pulls out his notebook, for lack of a better idea, and writes down, _forest? Green? Eyes?_

Tomorrow he’ll turn it into a more logical bullet point, he tells himself.

A few minutes later, he chances another glance at the man. He’s not looking at Bill, just eating the bread, a book open on the table in front of him. It’s a large book; Bill wonders where he was keeping it. Maybe tomorrow he’ll get a look at the title.

Tomorrow. Which is today, but it’s still, in its own way, a new day. The thought is almost encouraging. Bill finishes his food, pays, and glances out the window for the first time since he got to the restaurant. The beautiful sunset is almost gone, but he’ll see it tomorrow.

On his way out, he looks at the man again, and finds him turned just a little in his seat. This time, Bill meets his eyes, and holds them. He raises a brow, and smiles.

The man smiles back at him, nods, and turns back around.

Bill is practically whistling by the time he’s back at his car. The first few raindrops begin to fall on his drive back to the hotel.

❖❖❖

The next few days — five, Bill thinks, total — go just about the same. Bill keeps dropping his notebook, and he keeps seeing the man. His list, re-recorded every day, gets longer and more coherent, and the man never comments on it when he hands it back to Bill. The publisher’s meeting is as uncomfortable as ever, and he plays eye-contact chicken — of a sort — with the man every night in the restaurant.

He can do anything, he’s realized, and there will be no consequences. But he doesn’t particularly want to exploit it. He’s not a fan of pain and he doesn’t want to risk getting seriously hurt or killed, even if he’ll wake up in the morning as good as ever. And if he strays too far from his plan for the day, he might miss seeing the man, and he has a feeling that’s important.

Bill takes his notes every day. He watches the sunset, waits for the rain, waits for the man.

For those five days, it’s the same. On day six, everything changes.

❖❖❖

“ _Goooooooood morning, Boston! It’s quarter past seven and I’m your host—_ ”

As Bill’s hand slaps down the snooze button, he finds himself wondering who the host is. He’s never listened long enough to find out. Maybe tomorrow. He gets dressed quickly and writes down most of his list before heading out.

_The day is repeating, from when I wake up to when I fall asleep._

_I’m not dreaming. This is real, even though—_

_Changes don’t stay. Everything resets when I wake up._

_I’m supposed to get out of this._

_The man is important._

_It starts raining around eight-thirty and starts pouring around eleven._

He leaves the last item — _Today is day 10_ — for outside the dentist’s. The appointment goes exactly the same; he finds himself idly thanking whatever higher power is responsible for this that he doesn’t have to start each day with a root canal. He pulls out his notebook and writes down the final item just as the bus goes by, and braces for impact.

It doesn’t come.

Bill straightens, puts the notebook in his pocket, and turns around. The man is standing there, looking at him, several feet away.

This is new. He opens his mouth, and closes it when he realizes there’s nothing to say. The man saw him in time. There’s nothing more to happen here. He slowly tucks the notebook in his pocket, and the man speaks.

“It’s repeating for you, too, isn’t it?”

Bill goes still. He can feel his heart suddenly pounding, racing against his ribcage; he’s shaking. The man stares at him, intent, and Bill mentally lists all of their interactions. They have been changing. The man tells him not to lose his notebook, every day, when there isn’t a chance that he will — he was keeping the script. He looks at Bill in the restaurant. His eyes — his so-familiar eyes — are searching Bill, as much as Bill is searching him.

It’s not just him.

“Yes,” he says, and the man visibly melts in relief, the tension vanishing from his shoulders. He lets out a weak laugh. “How — how did you know?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I just had this idea that I had to pay attention to you. That there was something important. And you kept changing — your keys, your notebook, and you ordered something different every day.” He laughs and runs a hand nervously through his hair. “I didn’t know if I was imagining it. If you’d called me insane, at least you wouldn’t remember tomorrow.”

It makes sense. It makes so much sense. Bill is practically light-headed with relief.

“What’s your name?” he asks, and the man smiles. His smile makes him look twenty years younger, and Bill wants to keep looking at it forever.

“Mike Hanlon. And you?”

“B-bill. Bill Denbrough.” It’s been a long time since he stuttered — early high school, he’s pretty sure — and it’s embarrassing, but he doesn’t feel embarrassed. He feels perfectly comfortable in front of this man.

Mike Hanlon. He can’t imagine that he didn’t know that name before. He’s known it all his life.

❖❖❖

Bill misses his publisher’s appointment and mailing the package today. There’s always tomorrow. He drives to the park with Mike and they sit by the duck pond, quiet and thinking. They’d compared notes on the drive over, and the basics are the same for both of them: they’ve been in the loop for ten days, everything is the same every day except their interactions with each other, and everything resets in the morning. There’s a bit of an awkward silence, now; Bill wants to ask if Mike feels like he does, like they’ve known each other before and somehow forgotten, but it’s a strange thing to ask someone. He thinks Mike is feeling the same thing.

“Are you William Denbrough, the author?” Mike asks after a few moments. He tosses a few pieces of shredded lettuce into the duck pond, and a few ducks paddle towards it.

“Yes,” Bill says. “Would you like me to sign something?”

“Maybe some other time,” Mike says, and they lapse into silence again. Bill can’t stand the silence; he has a feeling they haven’t told each other everything they need to know, and it’s getting closer to awkward by the second.

“So,” Bill says, “how do we get out of this?”

“You’re the writer. How would you have us escape?”  
Bill looks down at his notebook. He doesn’t remember taking it out of his pocket, but he did, and he’s flipped to his notes page. In the corner is a doodle he doesn’t remember drawing today. A turtle’s shell.

“I don’t know. But… I have a feeling that we’re getting closer to finding our way out.”

“We found each other,” Mike says, and Bill nods. “That’s important.”

“Yes.” _Do you keep thinking of a turtle,_ Bill wants to ask, _do you keep thinking you’ve forgotten something important_ , but he can’t make himself say the words.

“I think we should finish the day separately,” Mike says. “Meet at the restaurant and check if anything new has happened. If not, we’ll meet again tomorrow.”

“Agreed.” Bill stands and Mike does too after a moment. “I’ll see you later.”

“See you.” Mike wraps his scarf again and walks off. Bill watches him go for a long moment, feeling uneasy, and slowly makes his way towards his car.

Bill drives in circles until it’s time for his reservation. He’s chewed his bottom lip bloody while driving, he realizes as he parks and glimpses the wound in his rearview mirror. He wipes it on his sleeve, wincing, as he makes his way into the restaurant. _At least it won’t be there tomorrow._

He’s running out of menu items that he’s interested in, so Bill orders two appetizers as he waits for Mike. At five to seven — early, for the first time — Mike walks in and looks straight at him. Bill smiles without even thinking, and Mike smiles back. That smile — it stirs in him a feeling decades old. The feeling of being eleven, of torn sneakers and dappled sunlight through trees and riding a bike far too big for you, feeling like you can fly. It’s overwhelming, and he has no idea where it came from.

Bill’s hands are starting to shake. He pays for his food and moves over to Mike’s table. Mike has nothing new to report, and they agree to meet outside the dentist in the morning.

❖❖❖

That night, Bill dreams, for the first time since this began.

Not just one dream. Several dreams, and each one is long and complicated and — a memory. He dreams of Derry — his house, the rainstorm, Georgie. How did he forget Georgie? Georgie, and Silver, and the stifling summer heat, and — the Barrens.

He dreams of the Barrens. Building a dam, building a clubhouse, Eddie choking on air.

He dreams of Mike. Mike joining them, the Losers, the lucky seven, making their circle complete. Riding Silver, Mike perched on the handlebars and laughing, his face turned to the sun. Riding like nothing could catch up to them.

He dreams of Mike calling them home, to kill the monster for good. The monster, the clown.

He dreams of a monster in the sewers, a monster with a million faces. A monster he killed, only a few months ago. He dreams of that, too, more fragmented, closer to waking up — a spider, a turtle, and infinity.

(Some parts, he doesn’t remember, and something — maybe his voice, maybe something else — tells him that’s for the best. Some of these memories will only bring pain; it’s better that they stay in the dusty corners of his mind, never to see the light again. Outside, he supposes, of his novels.)

When he wakes, he remembers almost everything.

❖❖❖

“ _Goooooooood morning, Boston! It’s quarter past seven and I’m your host—_ ”

Today, Bill is half excited and half terrified. He dresses quickly and is so twitchy at his appointment that the dentist stops halfway through to ask if he needs to take something to calm down. He practically runs out as soon as he can, and this time he watches for Mike to appear.

It’s the first time Bill has seen Mike turn the corner, a few moments before the bus passes. He makes eye contact with Bill immediately and practically runs at him.

“Did you—”

“I remember—”

They both stop, waiting for the other to go on, and Bill lets out a short, giddy laugh. A fog has lifted; he understands why he’s here, and Mike does too. He knew it the moment he saw him. They’re so close to getting out.

“The d-dreams,” Bill continues when Mike gestures for him to go on. The stutter slipping out surprises him, but it’s not a shock — he remembers that, now, as well. “Last night, I r-r-remembered — D-Derry. Everything. The others — Beverly and Ben and Richie and E-Eddie and S-Stan. And the cl-clown.” He stops, and realizes that in his rush to leave, he left his notebook in his hotel room. That’s a first. “I remembered you. The l-l-lighthouse keeper.”

Mike smiles, a look that’s at once triumphant and tense. “Keeping the lighthouse. I remembered that, too. My entire adult life — I didn’t remember a damn thing from it. And now I do. And everything else from that summer, too.” He pauses. “I remember you. Big Bill.”

Bill grins. “Let’s g-get out of here, Mike.”

❖❖❖

The turtle makes sense now. He’s kept seeing it, all these days — the shell he’d doodled over and over, the glimpses out of the corner of his eye. For whatever reason, it’s helping him and Mike.

It’s a strange way to help, but Bill finds he’s grateful.

They spend the day together, wandering the city and talking, memories surfacing as they do — the rockfight, the smokehouse, the Chinese restaurant. Eddie, dead and gone beneath the rubble of Derry, and Stan, who couldn’t face coming back at all.

It’s strange, remembering something so massive that happened less than a year ago, something that vanished so completely he barely knew it was gone. He knew there was something, of course, a vaguely unpleasant visit home (home, that he wouldn’t have been able to point to on a map only yesterday) that ended his marriage and nearly killed Audra, but he hadn’t even thought about why it had disappeared into the mists of his mind like it never happened at all.

They talk, and sometimes they don’t. They simply absorb each other’s company, like they’re making up for nearly thirty years apart.

For the first time, Bill suggests skipping their reservations, and Mike agrees. By unspoken agreement, they go back to Bill’s hotel room, where he tries to tidy up a little in vain as Mike sits on the other bed and watches him with amusement. They order room service and eat with the muted TV in the background

“How much have you experimented?” Mike asks as Bill finishes his food. “With the repeating day, I mean.”

“Not much,” Bill says. “I guess I’m n-not that adventurous.” Mike laughs, and Bill amends himself. “Not an-anymore, at l-least. I’ve had e-enough adventure to l-last a lifetime.”

“Me too.” Mike says. “I did a few things, I guess, though not much. I tried to stay awake one time, to see if a new day would start, but it just reset at six, since that’s when I wake up every morning.”

“I d-didn’t try that,” Bill admits.

“We could try again,” Mike suggests. “Maybe we’ve done enough. Maybe tomorrow will be a new day.”

“I h-h-hope not. M-My p-publisher will k-kill me.”

Mike puts his empty plate aside. “You’re more valuable alive than dead. Let’s just try.”

It doesn’t sound terribly interesting to Bill, but Mike is insistent enough that he figures it’s better to go along with it. He orders coffee as the heavy rain starts to come down, and the night wears on and on.

Around one, Mike has the brilliant idea to drink something better than coffee. The hotel turns out to be incredibly accommodating, and sends up a variety of bottles along with soda, juice, and ice. The coffee is abandoned, and the night, in Bill’s opinion, goes from good to great.

Quietly enjoying each other’s company turns into drunkenly reminiscing, complete with cartoonish reenactments, hysterical laughter, and far too many cocktails than they really should be having at their age. They’re not in college anymore, but the night almost feels like it: they’re full of energy and excitement and the world feels wide open.

As the clock ticks past five, they start to slow down, and Bill, at least, feels a sense of calm settling over him. The rain is still going strong, loud outside the window, and it almost feels like they’re in their own little world, like no one and nothing can touch them. Not even death.

By ten to six, Bill is half-asleep, sitting on the floor and leaning against the bed. Mike is across from him, their legs touching, and Bill can feel every bit of contact, even through the layers of fabric. Mike is warm, and he can feel it.

Five to six, Mike stands, a little wobbly, and goes for another drink. “Might as well,” he says at Bill’s questioning look. “Either I’ll wake up in my hotel or not.”

Bill stumbles to his feet, less graceful than Mike, and leans a hip against the bed. Mike mixes up four different kinds of alcohol and at least a couple of juices. The cocktail is bright pink and looks delicious, and Bill takes it out of his hand and takes a sip. It’s sweet and very, very alcoholic.

“That’s g-good,” he says, and Mike nods.

“Took a bartending course once. It hasn’t added much value to my life, but sometimes it’s fun.”

Bill’s not entirely sure what happens next. The clock says 5:59. Mike is sipping his drink, and then he puts it down, and somehow, Bill can’t stop staring at his lips. Mike follows the line of his eyes, and opens his mouth, and Bill finds himself leaning forward—

❖❖❖

“ _Goooooooood morning, Boston! It’s quarter past seven and I’m your host—_ ”

In a fraction of a second, Bill goes from drunk, standing in close proximity to another person, about to make one of the strangest drunken decisions of his life, to waking up from a deep and restful sleep, entirely sober and entirely alone.

He finds his notebook, quickly, and flips it open to a random page. _Not today_ , he writes, barely aware of the movement of his hands. He’s not sure why, and he stares blankly at the page for a moment before it hits him: he’s not out of the repeating day yet. It’s a strange method of letting him know, but he supposes it works.

Well, it’s good to know that he doesn’t need to go to his meeting today. He sighs and closes the notebook.

He’s pretty successful at avoiding thinking about the night before throughout his dentist appointment. It’s only when he sees Mike appear that he’s unable to block it out: Mike’s face only inches from his, the taste of liquor on his tongue, tiredness and alcohol clogging his rational thinking. The moment before he woke up in bed, he thinks Mike might’ve been closing the gap between them.

Or not. He could be wrong — he probably is. Really, what was going to happen? Nothing.

He can almost feel a physical wave of disappointment as he thinks that, and he doesn’t think it came from him.

“I guess it’s not over,” Mike says by way of greeting.

“G-guess not,” Bill says. “Plans?”

“Nothing, really. You?”

“No. W-wanna get a b-b-beer?”

Mike laughs. “It’s a little early for that, isn’t it? Nothing will be open.”

Bill shrugs. “Do you want to m-meet again in a f-few hours?” He might as well go to his meeting, then. It won’t be pleasant, but at least he can say whatever he wants without consequence.

“Sure. Meet you at the hotel at three?”

Bill nods, and they go their separate ways. The meeting is painful, as usual, and Bill swears his publisher is getting more impatient by the day. He wonders, idly, as they talk around the real issue, whether anyone else has vague memories of the day repeating. His publisher might be impatient because he’s subconsciously experienced this meeting as many times as Bill has.

It’s an odd thought, but it gets him through the rest of the meeting without developing a headache. When he escapes, he drives back to the hotel and Mike is there, waiting for him. They drive for a few minutes before Bill spots a dingy sports bar and decides that it’s the one.

When they go inside, it’s full of regulars, older men watching the flickering TV screens and talking in low tones to each other. The whole place is dark wood with a dark green carpet, dimly lit mainly by the TV screens; the various pieces of sports memorabilia crowding the walls are barely visible. There’s a pool table and several dartboards in the back, neither in use.

Bill spots an empty booth in the back corner, and leads the way towards it. The leather seats are cracked with age, but soft, and the table is tacky, with a few sticky patches that Bill would rather not think about. A bored-looking waitress hands them menus and asks what they’d like to drink.

Mike orders for both of them, two pints of the house special, and the waitress goes back behind the bar and pours out their drinks. Bill flips through the menu. The paper under the plastic covers is worn thin, and half the menu items are missing letters or stained with mystery substances.

The waitress drops their beers down in front of them so hard that Mike’s spills over the rim of his glass. Bill thinks he might have an idea of where the table’s vague stickiness came from.

“Would you like an appetizer? Onion rings are on special today,” the waitress says in a monotone.

“I’ll take some onion rings,” Mike says. “Bill, do you want anything?”  
“I’ll h-h-have some h-hot w-w-wings, please,” Bill says, picking an item at random. The waitress takes their menus and disappears into the kitchen.

“I gotta say,” Mike says, as he mops up the spilled beer with his napkin, “it’s nice to be able to get that drunk and wake up the next day feeling fine.”

“It’s like b-being a t-teenager again,” Bill says, and Mike nods. Bill tries the beer, and somehow it tastes just like the bar feels.

“It’s weird to remember that again,” Mike says. “I didn’t spend much time getting drunk at the time, though. It didn’t exactly feel safe.”

“N-nothing felt safe in D-Derry,” Bill says.

“That’s true,” Mike says, looking down at his beer, and Bill thinks, _it must have been so much worse for him._ It wasn’t good for any of them, any of the Losers, or any child in Derry, really — but Mike was the lighthouse keeper. He saw the monster and not only lived, but remembered. He spent twenty-seven years trying to find a way to kill it for good. Bill remembers what Mike wrote, the stories that were half-memoir and half-history of Derry. The horrors were unimaginable, and Mike had to not only discover them, but keep them in his head, and try to find the thread of connection in the tragedies.

Mike is the reason they survived. Bill knows that, and he hopes he never forgets it again.

They make small talk for a few minutes, carefully avoiding the subject of Derry, until their food comes. It’s greasy, alternately over- and under-seasoned, and spent too long in the deep fryer, but it’s not bad. When they’ve eaten and their beers are mostly empty, Mike challenges Bill to a game of pool.

He hasn’t played much, and his technique is atrocious, but so is Mike’s. They have a pleasant time playing pool, darts, and having a beer or two more, and by the time Bill notices how long it’s been, it’s almost time for their reservations. By unspoken agreement, they go back to the booth and order burgers instead of returning to the restaurant. The view here — a football game and a few loud fans — isn’t quite as nice as the ocean, and the food is worse by miles, but Bill thinks he doesn’t mind if he’s here with Mike.

The day slips by so fast that Bill is barely aware of it. They finish eating and keep talking, and when he looks at his watch it’s almost nine. The rain must have started.

“I’m g-g-going to head b-back to the h-h-hotel,” he says, and doesn’t let himself look at the expression on Mike’s face. It’s too warm, too open, it almost hurts. “D-do you w-w-want to come?”

“Sure,” Mike says. “Sure, Bill.”

The rain has started, lightly; it’s an easy drive back to the hotel. In the room, Mike pulls off his jacket, his sweater; he must have done the same last night, but this time Bill can’t stop watching as he drapes his sweater over the desk chair.

He’s barely aware of choosing to move, but a moment later, Bill is standing in front of Mike, close enough to see his own reflection in Mike’s eyes. Mike just looks at him, not saying a word; the moment stretches out between them.

 _Not a ghost_ , he thinks, wildly. _This is real_.

It feels like an inevitability when Bill leans in.

❖❖❖

Mike falls asleep before Bill does. He soaks in the moment; he knows Mike won’t be there when he wakes up, but he’ll see him soon enough. The rain starts to pour, and Bill falls asleep.

❖❖❖

“ _Goooooooood morning, Boston! It’s quarter past seven and I’m your host, Steve Patterson. This next song from a band that thinks brain surgery is easy: it’s Simple Minds._ ”

The opening chords of _Don’t You (Forget About Me)_ start to play, and Bill just listens for a moment. This is the last day, he knows; he won’t be here again.

He can’t stop the smile on his face. He’s not sure he wants to.

❖❖❖

Today, his notebook gets used for its intended purpose.

At the dentist, he can’t stop writing. The scraps of writing make no sense on their own, but Bill understands them; he’ll be able to start stitching them into a narrative soon enough. He knows what his next novel will be. Childhood friends, fighting a monster as old as time, across generations. And falling in love.

He doesn’t stop writing as he goes out to the street, until Mike touches his arm. Then he puts his notebook away, and smiles at Mike. He wants to do more, wants to lean in and touch him — but he knows better. And he has all the time in the world.

“I’ll see you at the restaurant,” he says. “It’s the last day.” He notices, in the back of his mind, that his stutter is gone.

“I know. See you then,” Mike says, and vanishes, his red scarf fluttering in the wind.

Bill mails the package, for the first time in days. The meeting is much less tense today, since Bill has an actual idea to present. His publisher looks immensely relieved, and asks when it’ll be done.

“Can’t say,” Bill says, “but it’s coming to me fast. Not too long, I think.”

The meeting ends earlier than usual, and Bill spends the rest of the afternoon making notes. He can’t wait to get back home to his typewriter, to start the story.

At the restaurant, he orders what he ordered on the first day, and watches the ocean until Mike walks in. He doesn’t even need to look; he just knows, like there’s a live wire stretched between them.

After he pays — tipping a hundred; the waitress has been nothing but great over this whole journey — he meets Mike at his table, and steals a piece of his bread. He’s giddy, and feels like a teenager again, and he’s so in love he might burst. Mike rolls his eyes, and finishes his food.

“Stay at my hotel tonight?” Bill asks, and doesn’t ask what he really wants to. _Come home with me?_

Mike knows what he means, anyway. Smiling, he nods.

❖❖❖

The rain starts to pour as they fall asleep, limbs tangled, and Bill doesn’t dream. When he wakes, it’s still raining.


End file.
